This semester, I had a dream come true—a good dream! During my first year teaching in China, more than a decade ago (Yikes! It feels weird to say that!), I taught spoken English for English majors. I loved it. We had lots of fun practicing random role plays and...
In the Chinese literature class that I’ve been auditing, we spent several weeks looking at Tang and Song Dynasty poetry. I never imagined that I would enjoy poetry from these periods. I can barely understand English poetry unless someone explains it to me, but the...
I may have mentioned before that I really enjoy hot pot. China has many different flavors of hot pot. Different areas often have their own specialties. Sichuan and Chongqing hot pots are both spicy but with different degrees of spiciness and with different...
Students and colleagues and friends often ask me where to find good American food in Guangzhou, and this post is my response to all of them. I love Chinese food, but sometimes it’s nice to just have a good burrito or a nice hamburger (contrary to popular opinion...
Since I live in Guangzhou (in the Canton area), I have plenty of chances to listen to Cantonese Opera when I’m walking through a park. However, since the music is everywhere, I didn’t realize how often I had heard it until I watched a small Cantonese opera show in the...
I’ve heard multiple stories about people in China standing around watching a fight rather than helping the people involved. Why is that? I think a big reason for that is all the stories we also hear about people who try to help and then the person that they are trying...
The weather in my city was pretty good in March and even now in April this year. So it’s perfect for getting out and seeing the parks and gardens in Guangzhou. April is getting a bit warm to be out too much, but it’s still bearable. One of the parks that my roommate,...
I love reading, so when one of my friends started a book club, I was super excited to join! We meet once a month to talk about the book we read that month. Since I don’t want to forget about the book before we talk about it, I usually try to time my reading so that I...
I like sushi. The best sushi I’ve ever had was in Japan, at a fish market in Tokyo. Two of my Japanese friends took me there, and even though I don’t usually prefer to eat raw fish, that one was perfect. We even had puffer fish which is poisonous if it is prepared...
One of the advantages of being a university teacher is that I get the chance to see amazing performances. The other day, my roommate, Kendra, and I were out having adventures in the city (I’ll have to tell you more about those in another post). As we were getting on...